


xxi. flames

by green_piggy



Series: these crests that bind us [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fun Times!, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, basically: edelgard is traumatised as balls and hubert is way out of his depth, but by lord is he trying, mild but it's there, pre-game, spoilers for Edelgard's backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 03:29:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21349525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/green_piggy/pseuds/green_piggy
Summary: ”The Crest of the goddess who governs the world. Occasionally restores HP equal to 30% of damage dealt. Rarely raises Mt and stops counterattacks.”--Edelgard did not feel as though she had received the greatest of all blessings from the goddess Herself.or:“What’s wrong with me, Hubert?” she whispered. “What’s -what’s wrong with me?”“Lady Edelgard, please—"“What's happening!?” she shrieked, clawing at the scar. “This isn't natural! This isn't - thisisn't-!”
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra
Series: these crests that bind us [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539064
Comments: 8
Kudos: 108





	xxi. flames

**Author's Note:**

> **PLEASE HEED ALL CONTENT WARNINGS AND EXIT IF NEEDED THANK YOU**
> 
> been sitting on this fic for a month or so now. got inspired after writing that claude crest fic (which is part of this series! you don't Need to read it but if you wanna and haven't already it's there~)  
i haven't finished crimson flower, but i've watched all the cutscenes and know everything that happens lmao and idk. edelgard's great. what fantastic writing. everyone in this game is a* honestly
> 
> btw this is completely platonic and i'll release lysithea on you if you make this romantic. just assume in all of my fics that it's about The Found Family. if i ever write romance it's not me
> 
> anyway hope you enjoy!! if you want some music to set The Mood (spoiler alert: it's not a very happy one) check out this song i had on repeat while writing this:
> 
> [patterns by steve gibbs](https://youtu.be/4x1MAS3IAgY)

Edelgard woke up to one of her scars disappearing.

At first, she'd sat there in silent befuddlement, hand on her duvet, unable to pinpoint the itchy, tingling sensation on her skin. It was only when she geared herself up enough to bear gazing at her own skin that she tore the duvet off and lifted up the hem of her bed shirt, hand tremouring.

There, on the slight swell of her stomach, in the middle of a scattering of scars, one of them was healing.

She didn't know  _ how  _ to react.

So, she didn’t.

Beside her, curled up on himself, Hubert slept. He had refused to be separated from her from the moment they had reunited; now, for the first time, she was grateful for his clinginess.

There was no ignoring this feeling. She pinched the scar between two fingers and stretched as far apart as she could. The skin flattened, and, now, she could see it easily; dot by dot, inch by inch, the scar was - disappearing. Pale skin crept across the darkened mark and left it looking as peachy as the day she'd been born.

Edelgard was still young. She had not yet isolated all of her emotions, shoved them away into a box heavier than steel that she refused to ever acknowledge. She was young, and afraid, and not a week past, had had needles prodding her body and blood forced into her and the  _ pain— _

She started to shake. Her entire body trembled. She'd thought herself made of ice, forcing herself to become emotionless after her siblings’ screams and bloodied corpses on the ground, rats nibbling at their rotting flesh and digging their tiny little claws into her, after the chains shackled around her wrists, her ankles, her throat, after the pain the  _ pain the never-ending agony— _

“Lady Edelgard?” came Hubert’s voice, slurred with sleep. He stirred, loosening the quilt he’d had clenched tight around himself. Ordinarily, Edelgard would order him back to sleep, or insist that it was nothing, but no words were capable of coming out.

When she didn’t speak, but not from a lack of trying, he seemed to snap awake. He pushed the quilt back and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

“Lady Edelgard?” he repeated, a mite more urgently than before. “What’s the matter?”

“I-I…” Hand shivering, she grabbed the candle from her table, petrified of dropping it on her skin. Not because of the pain it would cause (she had suffered enough of that to grow numb), but from what would happen after. Would  _ that  _ heal too, if she let the flame char her skin with marks no magic or medicine could remove? Flames already burned under her skin; what was one more wisp?

Thankfully, Hubert had always better understood actions over words. He took the candle from her, clasping it in his hand, and leaned forward towards her exposed skin.

He frowned, letting out a small noise of surprise, and Edelgard knew that she hadn’t been imagining things.

“What’s wrong with me, Hubert?” she whispered. “What’s -  _ what’s wrong with me?” _

“Lady Edelgard, please—"

“What's happening!?” she shrieked, clawing at the scar. “This isn't natural! This isn't - this  _ isn't-!” _

She dropped the bottom of her bed shirt with a choked noise deep in the back of her throat. She didn't want to see it. She  _ couldn't  _ see it. Not now.

"I can't—"

The candle holder clattered against the table as Hubert dropped it, acting with more urgency than Edelgard had ever seen from him. "You need to breathe—"

"I know!"

Thunder rumbled outside. Edelgard's gaze snapped up. When she spotted herself in the mirror, saw the weak  _ pathetic  _ little girl quivering, she snapped. She picked up the candle with a roar and hurled it at the mirror.

Glass shattered and crumbled with a dreadful noise. In an instinct, the room was snuffed into darkness.

Some shards still remained in the mirror's frame, like swatted spider webs clinging to a room's corners. In those, all Edelgard could see was her irises tiny in their sockets, her sweat-soaked ashen face, her bone-white hair in tangles around her cheeks, flush against her forehead.

She might throw up if she looked any longer. She twisted her head away, right into Hubert's concerned eyes.

"What's wrong with me?" she demanded, voice hoarse, even though she already knew the answer. There was a power brimming under her skin that no human was ever meant to experience. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to - she wanted to—

She pulled at the ends of her hair. She wanted to rip it out. She wanted to burn it all. She  _ wanted to— _

“First my hair, now  _ this!”  _ Edelgard now tugged at her scalp - it was white, so white, like bleached bone and it wasn't what it should be  _ it wasn't the right colour— _

Hubert's hand clamped around her own. His bony fingers were suffocating,  _ cold. _

They hadn't been cold before. Before - all of this. He'd been warm, pleasant to the touch.

Now he felt like ice.

She yanked her hand away. “What's wrong with me!? What's  _ happening  _ to me!?”

She choked on a sob.

“I can’t lose these scars! They’re all I have left of my siblings!”

Hubert didn't tell her that it would be okay. He didn't whisper pleasant nothings or kind lies. Those would have been far crueler than any truth.

He sat there, face grim, eyebrows pinched together in a way that meant that he was thinking very long and very hard.

Edelgard tried to compose herself, but it was proving an impossible task. When she shut her eyes, fire burned behind her eyelids and under her skin, howling and consuming and ruining everything it touched. She dug her fingernails into her biceps, the intensity of her grip threatening to break through silk and skin. It was grounding, comforting, a reminder that she was  _ human— _

Frigid hands grasped her own and pulled them away. Before Edelgard could react, Hubert pulled her to his chest with a jitter of a sigh. It was in little moments like this - his hesitance, the rigid awkwardness of the hug - that she was reminded, vividly, that he was as much a child as she was.

If she could even be called a child any longer. If she ever could have been one.

Just this once, Edelgard allowed herself this weakness. She sank into his embrace with a wobbling sob.

As quickly as it had come, the flames within her had been extinguished. She slumped against the only person she could trust, a boneless, exhausted mess.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Hubert's hand rested against the small of her back. He knew better than to touch her hair. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers.

"You have nothing to apologise for," he said, voice trembling.

She drew back, her breath rattling from her heaving chest like a chattering skeleton. "The - the mirror—"

"Will be fixed in the morning." Hubert didn't even look at it. Edelgard could see the shards amongst the carpet’s fibres, glistening in the moonlight. "You need sleep, Edelgard."

The lack of 'Lady' shouldn't have been as touching as it was.

Inhaling, Edelgard gave a shaky nod. Hubert rested an arm on her waist and gently tugged her down so that they were lying together. He made no move to pull the bed covers, bundled at their feet, over them. Edelgard was thankful - her entire body felt aflame. Even Hubert’s touch made her want to bolt, made her want to pull away.

_ Don't touch me. All I do is burn people. All I do is destroy. _

Under her skin, the Crest of Flames hungered.

If she had flames within her… she'd become ice to stop them. To quell their cries and screams.

She refused to let this Crest consume her. She would use its power - the power of  _ both  _ of her Crests. She remembered the whispers of the shadows - hushes about shortened lifespans, weakened bodies - and refused to acknowledge them.

If Edelgard hurt any innocents… all she could hope for was forgiveness from the goddess.

Then again, did the goddess even exist? Did she truly endorse Crests? When they led to suffering like  _ this?  _ When She made them matter so much that people from the shadows experimented on her and her siblings, to make her a  _ weapon?  _ And for what? For  _ what? _

Revenge. Justice.

Oh. Edelgard would have her revenge. She would tear down the stars in the sky and rip the goddess from them. She would destroy anyone and everyone who spread Her teachings. No one else would suffer like her. No one else would have their value and purpose and entire life dictated by blood they held no control over.

And then. Oh,  _ and then. _

Edelgard would find those shadows. She would burn with the light of the very flames they had given her, so bright and consuming that no darkness could remain.

And she would  _ destroy _ them.

Her path would be soaked in blood, but wasn't it already? Only a child, and she was drenched in the blood of her siblings, of those who hadn't survived.

Hubert's hand found her back again. His arm would surely be numb by the morning. His other hand was at the bottom of her back, right where her bed shirt ended. When the moonlight hit his open eyes, Edelgard thought she saw wetness in them before he squeezed them shut.

"Good night," he murmured.

"Good night," she whispered back. "And - thank you."

He smiled. It was a flicker of an expression, but the softness of it was like a balm against an open wound.

"You have no need to thank me," he murmured. "But you are welcome."

The way they were laying, with how he held her in a loose hug, someone looking in would have assumed that he was the one requiring comfort.

Edelgard didn't mind. If anything, it was exactly what she would have wanted. Smiling herself, she swallowed, throat aching, and rested her own arm across Hubert's bony one.

Tonight would be the final night she shed tears for many, many years.

When she eventually drifted off into a dreamless slumber, another scar on her stomach began to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> [my twitter!](https://twitter.com/greenpiggles) i'm very much in dqxi and 3h hell rn check it out if you wanna!
> 
> and thank you so much for reading! as always, kudos/comments are an author's backbone and keep us going! thanks again~


End file.
